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This book is a welcome addition to the sparse literature on an important and all-too-often neglected population: the elderly. It serves as a practical guide for the professional and layperson alike in that it covers areas of interest and concern to both. The first part, by Claire M. Brody, deals with nursing homes; the second, prepared by Joy C. Rich and Paula Kaminsky-Davis, covers “Community Programs for the Elderly”; the third, of greatest interest to clinicians, is “Private Practice” by Vicki G. Semel; the fourth and last is devoted to Medicare.
The chapters written by Vicki G. Semel offer the best insight into how modern psychoanalytic techniques are used to great advantage in working with the elderly. The cases presented demonstrate that those techniques are as effective with older patients as they are for all other categories of patients.
Also useful for the impaired elderly population are other non-psychoanalytic treatment modalities such as “Reminiscence Groups.” Although they require very active participation by the leader, they can have very beneficial effects in bringing about socialization for those who might tend to become alienated from a social setting.
This reviewer would have wished for a more thorough elucidation